We have returned to Phnom Penh, our first visit since 2011. We have come to see our Khmer "son", John Black who we first met in Sihanoukville in 2008. He is now married to Sokney and has a three year old son called Jesdar and another baby due in two months.
His family is not the only thing to have grown since we were last here. Phnom Penh in in hyper-overdrive, like the rest of Cambodia, driven by Chinese investment such as over 40 casinos that now dominate the once-lovely Sihanoukville.
Much of PP is a dusty building site with massive...

Greetings from Phnom Penh where I am for two nights. It’s the capital of Cambodia.
The first night I had a fantastic meal at Khmer Surin eating Som Tam and Fish Amok.
Yesterday a tour of The Royal Palace which is amazing, the National Museum, Wat Phnom, the Central Market and a look at the river where I had another good meal at a huge restaurant called Botha Phnom Penh also known as Titanic where tour groups seem to go understandably.
Last night I went to a traditional dance show at the National Museum followed by dinner at the Friends...

We are now in the 4th of our 5 country excursion. The first thing we experienced as we stepped off the plane was how hot it currently is in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The next thing that stood out is how long it takes to get through the airport when entering from another country. First we had to line up for a visa which cost $30 US per person. Once we had our visa we had to line up to clear customs which moved at a snails pace. It took over an hour to get out of the airport. Paying US dollars to enter a country seems to be a common practice in...

A fairly relaxed schedule today as we stayed overnight in Phnom Penh. Neil and I took ourselves to Wat Phnom, enduring just a few minutes’ of traffic dodging from our boat. This consists of various temples and statues and much incense stick wafting. The Cambodians seem to be very superstitious, witnessed today by men selling sparrows in cages in front of the temple for people to buy, hold, pray and release. Bizarre, and some choice words came to mind but I kept them to myself for once.
We took another Tuk tuk from there to the central tat...

Today we met a man whose life story will stay with us forever. Our guide in Phnom Penh , Bourtha, is 48 years old and lived through the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. When he was 7, both his parents were murdered by the regime and he was taken to a brainwashing centre (all children between 7-10 were taken there; younger and older were murdered if they were the children of ‘traitors’). At aged 10 he was given an AK47 gun and had to stand at the edge of a field and shoot prisoners who were told to run for their lives. Kill or be killed. He...

Cambodia 2nd January to 11 th January 2018
We left Vietnam and took a fast boat up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. The boat took about 30 people and we had the option of sitting in quite plush airline type seats or sitting up on the covered deck. We chose to sit on the deck and enjoy the view and the fresh air. Most of the boat were tourists like us, mainly Australian and a few Americans. The boat crew stowed the luggage carefully in the hold mindful of it not moving and causing a problem with the ballast . Our boat was very similar to the one...

This was to be one of my highlights of this trip - catching the train from Kampot to Phnom Penh.
We finally managed to get tickets for this service, which only runs 3 days a week. It took a couple of attempts at the station, a few phone calls and some help from Mr Bun. We had established that the station was open Wednesday to Monday to buy tickets, and the train runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The station being open, does not necessarily mean that there is someone there to sell you tickets, however, what we eventually figured out, was...

Of course you would not have doubted that I had all of our technology requirements sorted, for the 3 months away. I had adaptors, leads, spare phone and tablets to keep in touch, along with many other gadgets designed to make things work, including a portable keyboard and even the chrome cast dongle, for streaming in our Netflix series, (the chances of English channels on TV in SE Asia are few and far between).
All works well, but a pit fall is WiFi!
Hotel WiFi, whilst all advertise that they have this essential travelling tool, what we...

As arranged, our faithful taxi driver was out in front of our hotel at 9am, ready for our day of sight seeing, he opened the door for us, gave us a bottle of cold water, and as he headed off, we arranged where we would go and how much it would cost.
The journey was about 4.5 hours and his cost $40 USD.
First stop was the Killing Fields. This is the actual site where Pol Pot murdered millions of Cambodians in a Genocide that is just impossible to believe. A guided, self paced audio tour lets you understand the atrocities that were...

As I had hoped, a good sleep made all the difference and the city and everything in it seemed much better in the morning. As we have streets full of cafes around where we are staying, it is a dilemma choosing where to eat. We decide on a nice looking cafe, breakfasts for $3 including tea and coffee and sat back planning our day.
We are hopeless market addicts and even though we had braved Chinatown less than a week earlier, we decide to visit the famous Russian Market. After some haggling and banter and choosing of a "safe" tuk tuk (no,...

After a very early start and very short flight to Phnom Penh Cambodia, we arrived to a nice airport, an easy Visa on Arrival system, an orderly taxi system and friendly people. I should have known this was a trick! As we headed through the city towards our hostel, the traffic was appalling, with no apparent system or rules. No problem, this is Asia and we are well versed in chaos from our trips to Thailand.
Our driver is a simply lovely guy and we make a mental note to book him for a day trip during our stay.
We arrive at our hostel and...

The Talmud Torah School of Cambodia
March 10, 2017
Koh Chen, Vietnam
Wat Phnom is an 88 ft. high hill near the centre of Phnom Penh. “Phnom” means “hill” and so the city itself is actually named Penh Hill. The legend of Phenh Hill goes like this:
In 1372 Mrs. Penh discovered 4 statues of Buddha on the riverbank nearby and put them in a pagoda on top of the hill.
That’s it. That’s the whole legend. I don’t know about you, but as legends go, that’s not particularly intriguing. But we roll with it here in SE Asia and so we visited Mrs. Penh’s...